Thursday, May 23, 2019

It's the End of Vacation, Charlie Brown

I awoke to a day that was gloomy, cool, and very humid. Lauren and I still had to get her ready to take the train home. While she packed, I had breakfast and ran the second special on my new fall Peanuts set. It's Magic, Charlie Brown when Snoopy takes out a book on magic from the library and puts on a show as "The Great Houndini." It's mostly a bust, until he makes Charlie Brown disappear and forgets to make him reappear. Chuck's upset at first, but then he realizes that Lucy can't yank away the football if she can't see him...

Lauren hauled her luggage downstairs around 10:30. We waited until almost 11. Jodie was late; she'd been cleaning and had lost track of time. Dark clouds had gathered as we waited for her; we even heard thunder. The rain started coming down hard, just as Jodie arrived and helped Lauren get her luggage into her car. Thankfully, it barely lasted ten minutes. It was just about gone by the time we pulled in at the Cherry Hill Train Platform behind the Shop Rite. Lauren hauled her luggage out of the car, after which I gave her a big hug. She started towards the platform as Jodie drove me home.

(I definitely enjoyed this vacation, for all the trouble we had getting to it. We got lucky in a lot of ways. I was able to catch Jess and Joe on short notice, I didn't get stuck with jury duty, the only time it rained was briefly at night, and the heat wave hit on a day where we only had laundry planned and a day we mostly spent in an air conditioned mall. Lauren and I almost always have a great time when we get together. She's the best friend I ever had.)

Spent the next few hours waiting out the storms, tidying up the apartment, and making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and a chocolate-banana smoothie for lunch. Finished out the Smallville season 2 set  while I worked. "Accelerate" is the creepy tale of how Lana keeps seeing what she believes to be her best friend from her childhood everywhere. Thing is, Emily died in a tragic accident at the age of 10. Clark believes that Lana's seeing a girl, but not that she's a ghost. He recruits Chloe and Lex to help him figure out what's really going on. Meanwhile, Helen's caught sneaking around in Lex's room by Lionel and has to explain to her future father-in-law that she doesn't entirely trust her fiancee.

Clark wishes that the spaceship would quit "Calling" him. He finally learns that the cave holds the secret to opening the ship, but he doesn't like what he hears from it when he does get in. Meanwhile, Dr. Walden of earlier in the season has awaken from his coma, and he's convinced that Clark is an alien sent to kill everyone, and Lana and Helen are starting to question their relationship with their men.

The rain held off long enough for me to head out around quarter after 1. I still had some errands to run. Surprisingly, despite the iffy weather, there were quite a few folks out for a stroll in Newton Lake Park. Maybe they were enjoying the lovely scenery. The trees are almost in full bloom, their leaves a brilliant spring green, with white clover bobbing in the wind.

The Haddon Township Library wasn't too busy when I arrived. It was still a bit early, well before most kids get out of school. I tried to shelve as many DVDs as I could, but a lot of them didn't fit, especially in the kids' section.

Did much better taking out items. I haven't seen the original early 2000's Spider Man with Toby Maguire since I caught it in the theater with Rose's guy friends the Towns twins when it came out. While it wasn't my favorite Batman movie, I enjoyed The Dark Knight enough to try its sequel, The Dark Knight Rises. Dug an interesting mystery about a girl helping her private eye father during World War II, The Girl Is Murder, and The Neverending Story out of the young adult section and the most recent Hannah Swenson mystery Chocolate Cream Pie Murder off the New Releases shelves.

The dark clouds had begun to gather again as I hurried across the street to the Westmont Plaza. I was in and out of Target for electric toothbrush heads and Dollar Tree for sponges, both of which I kept forgetting when Lauren was here. The rain started as I was on my way down Cuthbert. I ducked under the overhanging roof at WaWa for a few minutes until the rain slowed enough for me to dash home.

Went straight into writing when I got in. Vader is about to turn Luke into dust when a man dressed in a long silvery coat and a black fedora swings into him, knocking him out of the sky. It's Harris, dangling off the Millennium Falcon. He tells Luke that Shara went home and he's clear to blow up the Death Ray. Harnessing the last rays of the setting sun, and with the encouragement of the spirit of Ben MacKenner, Luke does indeed get a blast of light into the shaft, sending it sky-high.

Broke for dinner at 6:30. Pan-fried the last of the bacon with scrambled eggs and tomatoes and a spinach salad with honey mustard dressing for dinner. Finished Smallville while I ate. Lex and Helen get married in the season finale "Exodus," but they do it without Lex's best man. Clark is too busy destroying the spaceship. The ensuing blast nearly kills half the town, including his parents. Despondent after arguing with his father and with Chloe, Clark grabs red kryptonite and takes off. Lex isn't doing so well either when he realizes that his plane is about to go down, and is bride's gone...

Too bad the second half the season veered too much into soap opera territory for my taste, because some of the earlier episodes were actually quite fun. The sweet Beauty-and-the-Beast story "Nocturne" and Christopher Reeves' touching appearance in "Rosetta" were particular favorites. Wasn't as crazy about "Accelerate," which felt more like it belonged in The Twilight Zone, or episodes like "Ryan" and "Visage" that focused more on the rather annoying love triangle between Chloe, Lana, and Clark or on overly melodramatic plots.

I will say that I largely enjoyed this season more than I did Season 4. There was no attempt at shoehorning in a random supernatural subplot, and when the episodes focused on Clark and the mystery surrounding his powers, it was really interesting.

Switched to Lego Pirates of the Caribbean after dinner. This one plays more like the first Lego Indiana Jones and Clone Wars, with a central location that can be explored with enough gold bricks and more complicated and detailed rounds. I wish the game didn't take so long to get started. The opening cut scene takes forever. Once you get going, it's a lot of fun, especially if you know anything about Jack Sparrow and his adventures.

Ended the night with the short Columbia musical Time Out for Rhythm. I go more into this vehicle for Ann Miller and the Three Stooges at my now off-hiatus Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.

Time Out for Rhythm

Technically, today was the last day of my vacation. The next few days are ordinary days off. I only have errands planned for tomorrow, but Saturday is the day of the Collingswood Farm Market and Collingswood's big May Fair. I'm looking forward to both, especially since I had to work on the day of the May Fair last year.

(Incidentally, Lauren finally got in around 12:30. Her train rides apparently went fine, but she and her folks ran into a thunderstorm on the way home and apparently had a few harrowing moments driving. At any rate, she's fine now, and the rain seems to have moved away from both our areas.)

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